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The present study investigates Taiwanese researchers’ perceptions, problems, and strategies of trying to get published in English in the field of English teaching. This discipline presents an interesting case for publishing, as in Taiwan, this group of researchers is highly expected to use English as a medium in writing for research. Through semi-structured in-depth interviews with 21 researchers, the findings show that regarding the role of English, all participants regarded it as an indispensable tool in their academic careers. They valued the significance of English journals and were keen to promote their ideas in the international market by using English as the medium. Most researchers reported that they had writing problems. However, if they were well-prepared, they would not be trapped into them. Except for language use, researchers were confident in their research topic. Because of Greater China’s rapid growth, people may want to know more about it. They also reported different strategies to solve problems in English publication. Implications of this study are discussed and concluded.

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Purpose – The purpose of the study is to look at Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ organizational strategy use in English writing at universities in Taiwan. One significant area that has been indicated in contrastive rhetoric studies spins around the notion of culturally constructed organizational patterns. It is claimed that second language (L2) writers may have implicit culturally driven presuppositions and values about academic writing in the first language (L1) that may transfer straightforwardly to academic writing in English. Design/methodology/approach – Data were from 50 high- and 50 low-achieving EFL students’ and 50 native English speakers’ (NESs’) written texts, and semi-structured interviews with EFL students and their teachers. Findings – Based on text analysis, when high-achieving EFL students and NESs were compared, they were similar in location of thesis, existence of introduction, existence of topic sentences, macro-level patterns, existence of conclusion, existence of a concluding sentence and existence of a final comment, but different in existence of background information. Nonetheless, it is noted that low-achieving EFL students were quite different from high-achieving EFL students and NESs in several aspects, such as location of thesis, existence of introduction, existence of topic sentences, macro-level patterns, existence of conclusion, existence of a concluding sentence, and existence of a final comment. In addition, the written texts and interview findings suggest that while cultural differences do, in fact, exist, Chinese writers’ English organizational strategy use were to some extent intertwined with their writing experiences and teachers’ writing instructions. The results also suggest the flexibility of writers and multiplicity of writing experiences within a cultural group. Originality/value – The study makes original recommendations for language pedagogy.